In Little Italy, Germano's makes a big change

In Little Italy, where three traditional Italian restaurants have closed within the span of six months, a fourth restaurant has announced a major makeover.

Beginning as soon as Thursday, Germano's Trattoria, which is owned by chef Germano Fabiani and Cyd Wolf, will be known as Germano's Piattini. The changeover will take place quietly, according to Donald Kennedy, the restaurant's general manager.

Wolf, who is Fabiani's wife, said "Germano looked at Little Italy as the perfect place for a renaissance. It's so well located. It juste needs a bit of a spark."

The new version of Germano's will see Fabiani collaborating with a new executive chef, Peter Perrone, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu Paris. The menu will focus on small plates, or piattini, like butternut squash tortellini, prosecco-battered long-stem artichokes, porchetta and pan-seared fillet of branzini.

The second-floor cabaret operations will continue, serving the full Piattini menu. The ground-level dining room has been reimagined as a casual tavern, which will feature craft beers on rotation and wine by the glass, in both 3- and 6-ounce sizes. There is an additional, quieter dining room on the second floor.

Wolf said that the new dining space will operate as a "terzo," or "third place,' the Italian phrase for a home away from home, or the a place that bridges the worlds of home and work. The new space will invited more casual, after-work drop-ins than the more formal trattoria that preceded it, Wolf said.

Elsewhere in Little Italy, the owners of Caesar's Den served their last meals to the public on Sunday night. Earlier this year, Rocco's Capriccio and Della Notte closed within weeks of each other.